“It’s gonna be legendary!” Mya Taylor as Marsha P Johnson in Happy Birthday Marsha! We are still raising post production funds so please support/share!
Check out the first in a series of video interviews between CeCe McDonald, Dean Spade and myself leading up to our in person conversation April 21st the New School!
The last few weeks have been particularly exhilarating for those of us work on trans liberation and gender self determination. After I attended Janet Mock’s book release for Redefining Release I watched my friend’s work get the attention and platform it deserves while also witnessing her shut down Piers Morgan and give him some generous …
Some reflections on the recent increased visibility of movements for gender determination and trans liberation!
On February 7th at 4PM EST please join me for an online discussion based on these a series of videos I made with Dean about prisons, Trans & gnc communities, the moral panic around psychiatric disabilities and where to go from here! Register today and join us for this exciting experiment in creating online learning spaces that contribute to activist conversations.
This past weekend I presented at the Queer Dreams Non Profit Blues conference here in NYC with many amazing & brilliant activists and community organizers trying to think thru this current political landscape and dream together about how to continue to move in the ways we desire.
Below is the link for the audio from the our panel, which starts a few minutes in with Imani offering opening remarks!
This past weekend I presented at the Queer Dreams Non Profit Blues conference here in NYC with many amazing & brilliant activists and community organizers trying to think thru this current political landscape and dream together about how to continue to move in the ways we desire.
Below is the audio from the our panel, which starts a few minutes in with Imani offering opening remarks.
https://echo.law.columbia.edu:8443/ess/echo/presentation/98bfc661-2bbb-473e-ad12-a4b775e9153c/media.mp3
I had an amazing time talking with Kye Allums, Laverne Cox & Tiq Milan on GLAAD's Growing Visibility panel this past week for the New Organizing Institute Trans Narrative Training.
That brilliant trans people of color comprised the entirety of the panel felt important -so often our visibility comes with the price of our agency and ownership both within the media and within our movements. But our power in the room on Wednesday night was deeply palpable and reminded me of how liberation is a collective process, one which we all our stories and lives depend on and all our stories and lives help to grow.
Help Support Egyptt! Please Signal Boost
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Dear Friends & Community, We are writing to let you know of a community member who needs support after going through a major health crisis. Many of you know Egyptt, a long time activist and advocate for low income, trans communities of color. Egyptt was formerly co-coordinator of Trans Justice at the Audre Lorde Project. Prior to her work at ALP she was a crucial member of the Queers for Economic Justice Welfare Warriors group where she lead the way fighting transphobia within New York City's welfare agency: the Human Resources Administration. Because of Egyptt's work NYC's Human Resources Administration has adopted its first ever transgender non discrimination policy, which Egyptt helped implement through many trainings of New York City employees.
Additionally Egyptt has been a long time advocate at Housing Works advocating to have New York State pass the Gender Employment Non Discrimination Act (GENDA). She is also a brilliant performer, frequently showcasing her talent at the Housing Works fashion shows and many Trans Day of Remembrance events. Egyptt is now unemployed and has lost her apartment in Harlem. We are turning to you, our community, to support Egyptt as she navigates this challenging moment. We want to raise 10,000 for Egyptt to get back some of what she has lost in the last few months. She needs resources to get back into housing, to replace lost possessions, and to cover outstanding healthcare costs. With deep appreciation, Reina Gossett, Pooja Gehi, & Dean Spade
Isis King snapped this photo of the Isis, Janet & me having a power kiki -the first step to girlslikeus taking over the world!
Captive Genders at The Scholar & Feminist 2013: Utopia
I had an amazing time doing a Captive Genders, Prison Abolition teach in with my brilliant sibling Che for UPenn's Trans-Ocular Event series put together by professorial tumblr queen Dr Jeanne Vaccaro. The student and non-student participants were great and I learned a whole lot from Che about ACT UP, the criminalization of HIV & AIDS & Kiyoshi Kuromiya.
(this flier was designed by the illustrious Julie Blair)
If you missed it, I'll be presenting my piece from Captive Genders work in a couple of weeks here in NYC at Barnard College's The Scholar & Feminist 2013: Utopia. The conference is free and will be filled with some bold people like Victoria Law, Dean Spade and Amber Hollibough to name a few. Hope to see you there!
Riding the elevator to creating change/creating chains success!
Staking Our Claim: Trans Women's Literature in the 21st Century
Check out the video for last month's historic literary discussion featuring the brilliant writers Ryka Aoki, Red Durkin, Imogen Binnie, and Donna Ostrowsky discussing their contributions to The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard. Thanks to Barnard Center for Research On (ALL) Women for making this happen!
Randy Magazine at New York Art Book Fair
SOME WOMEN HAVE PENISES, DEAL WITH IT
That's what I've taken to calling the interview that Tuesday Smillie & I have in the newest issue of Randy Magazine, which is at being shown at the New York Art Book Fair at MOMA'S PS1 Museum. It includes gorgeous photographs by Julia Gillard (the photographer, not the prime minister).
Today is the last day to go to the fair so if you're NYC based and looking for something to do today that incorporates gender self determination and art (which are inextricably linked) then I encourage you to check the fair out at PS1!
i was finally able to upload this beautifully shot video of SRLP's teach in at Zucotti Park. it starts at the 50 second mark with Kazembe Balagun, followed by Carlos Motta (who did translation), Pooja Gehi, myself, Naomi Clark & Jeannine Tang.
this was one of the first moments i felt part of trans & gender non conforming people taking up space at the park with our bodies and our legacies. right now i'm wondering about how these creative tensions are held within different movement, artistic and personal relationships one year later.
thanks to Jonah Groeneboer for filming and MPA for recording the audio! thanks to everyone who came and held signs and translated and human microphoned, and filled wall street with the some of the best light its had since the Dutch came and built the wall.
#Marsha P. Johnson#OWS#OWS Arts & Labor#Pooja Gehi#SRLP#Sylvia Rivera#arts and activism#gender self determination#jeannine tang#kazembe balagun#marsha p johnson#naomi clark#reina gossett#reina july#s.t.a.r.#street transvestite action revolutionaries#sylvia rivera law project#zucotti park#carlos motta
Gender fabulous sunglasses modeling at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project!
I co-authored this piece for the New Queer Agenda with my sibling Che and the illustrious AJ Lewis. we actually wrote it a while back but because of publishing changes it was only published this May through Barnard College Center for Research on Women and I think they did a great job. the whole online e-book looks so good!
CRIMINAL QUEERS comes to the New Museum in NYC! "Jeannine Tang and Reina Gossett with Eric Stanley and Chris Vargas: Love Revolution, Not State Collusion"
hey NYC area friends!
i'm doing another event at the New Museum this coming Thursday and I would love for you to be there! it will feature two amazing artists, Chris Vargas & Eric A Stanley, who will screen their prison break film, CRIMINAL QUEERS!
Jeannine Tang & I will moderate the conversation, it should be great.
did i mention its free? it is *free!*
here's the full description, i hope to see you there!
Thursday June 7, 2012, 7:30 pm
New Museum Theater
Free
As transgender issues, artists, and theory have received greater recognition in contemporary art discourses and institutions since the 2000s, activist Reina Gossett, art historian Jeannine Tang will discuss the role of art and artists in recent movement building, and how contemporary art figures in critical trans politics today.
This will feature a screening of the film "Criminal Queers," followed by a conversation with filmmakers Eric A. Stanley and Chris Vargas. "Criminal Queers" visualizes a radical trans/queer struggle against the prison industrial complex and toward a world without walls.
Remembering that prison breaks are both a theoretical and material practice of freedom, this film imagines what spaces might be opened up if crowbars, wigs, and metal files become tools for transformation.
By expropriating the "prison break" genre the question of form and content collapse into a rhythm of affective histories as images of possibility materializes even after possibility itself is foreclosed.
Follow Yoshi, Joy, Susan and Lucy as they fiercely read everything from the Human Rights Campaign and hate crimes legislation to the non-profitization of social movements. Criminal Queers grows our collective liberation by working to abolish the multiple ways our hearts, genders, and desires are confined.
This event is supported by the New Museum, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. A parallel conversation on recent organizing and movement building will be hosted by Sylvia Rivera Law Project on Friday, June 8 at 6pm. ** Reina Gossett is a trans activist working at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project as Director of Membership and was formerly director of the Welfare Organizing Project at Queers for Economic Justice as well as a Soros Justice Fellow on staff at Critical Resistance.
Eric A. Stanley works at the intersections of radical trans/queer aesthetics, theories of state violence, and visual culture. While completing a PhD in the History of Consciousness department at UCSC, Eric along with Chris Vargas, directed the films Homotopia (2006) and Criminal Queers (2012) which have been screened at Palais de Tokyo, LACE, Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow and SF Cameraworks among numerous other venues. Eric is also the editor of Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex (AK Press, 2011) which was recenlty selected as a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.
Jeannine Tang is an art historian teaching as Academic Advisor at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, while completing her doctoral work at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Chris E. Vargas is a film and video maker based in Oakland, CA, whose thematic interests include queer radicalism, transgender hirstory, and imperfect role models. He earned his MFA in Art Practice from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2011. Since 2008, he has been making, in collaboration with Greg Youmans, the web-based trans/cisgender sitcom Falling In Love...with Chris and Greg. Episodes of the series have screened at numerous film festivals and art venues, including MIX NYC, SF Camerawork, and the Tate Modern. With Eric Stanley, Vargas co-directed the movie Homotopia (2006) and its feature-length sequel Criminal Queers (2012). His solo video projects include Extraordinary Pregnancies (2010), Liberaceón (2011), and ONE for all... (2012).
** During the run of the exhibition "Museum as Hub: Carlos Motta: We Who Feel Differently," Motta invites local queer artists, activists, and academics to hold public events on select Thursday evenings in the Museum as Hub. Events include a conversation about transgender issues in contemporary art, a lecture on queer and feminist theologies, a workshop on HIV/AIDS activism today, a “cruising” walk, a presentation of a book about queer responses to gay inclusion in the military, and a collective reading of queer texts, all of which address critical issues of contemporary queer culture in the United States.
At the Chloe Awards with Sylvia Rivera Law Project staff attorney Pooja Gehi! This photo is by the amazing Shelly Sheddy!